League of Denial
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League of Denial by Mark Fainaru-Wada
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A "meticulously documented and endlessly chilling" (The New York Times) exploration of the NFL's decades-long attempt to deny and cover up mounting evidence connecting brain damage from football with CTE."A first-rate piece of reporting [that] adds crucial detail, texture, and news to the concussion story, which despite the NFL's best efforts, isn't going away."--Time
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR
"Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis." So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America's most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players--including some of the all-time greats--to madness.
Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn't know--and what the league sought to shield from them--is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football.
In League of Denial, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru expose the public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields and examine how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research--a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco's fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. They chronicle the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives, and former San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of a scientific battle between researchers and the NFL.
Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents, and private e-mails, League of Denial is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it--questions at the heart of a crisis that threatens American football--and of the battle for the sport's future.
Mark Fainaru-Wada an investigative reporter for ESPN. With his colleague Lance Williams, he coauthored the New York Times bestseller Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports. He lives in Petaluma, California. Steve Fainaru is an investigative reporter for ESPN. While covering the Iraq war for The Washington Post, he received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his investigation into the U.S. military's reliance on private security contractors. He lives in Berkeley, California.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780770437565 |
| ISBN 10 | 0770437567 |
| Title | League of Denial |
| Author | Mark Fainaru-Wada |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 2014-08-26 |
| Number of pages | 448 |
| Prizes | Winner of PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing 2014 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |